50 
FISHERIES OF ALASKA IN 1909. 
fishes were not being used for food and could not be so prepared 
profitably. 
There is insufficient justification in the company’s plea now, al- 
though it was partially true as regards herring and dog salmon for 
some years subsequent to 1882, when the plant was first established. 
Humpback salmon form the major part of the pack at the southeast 
Alaska canneries, while dog salmon are being used in greater num- 
bers each year. As to herring, the statistics of the fishery shown in 
this and former reports are ample evidence of the economic uses to 
which they can be put other than in the preparation of fertilizer 
and oil. 
In view, therefore, of the great need of the herring for food and 
bait, the time has arrived when the use of food fishes in the prepa- 
ration of fertilizer should be prohibited. In justice to the company 
in question, however, at least one full season should be allowed in 
which to readjust operations and prepare for the change. It is pos- 
sible that this plant might be profitably operated with the offal from 
the canneries in its neighborhood, and thus prevent, in part at least, 
the enormous waste which annually occurs when the offal is thrown 
overboard and allowed to pollute the waters adjacent to the canneries. 
Another reason for saving the herring is that they constitute food 
for many other fishes. The principal food of the king salmon is her- 
ring, and as the catching of king salmon by trolling now forms one 
of the most important and profitable of the fisheries of southeast 
Alaska, no condition that adversely affects it should be permitted to 
exist. There is little question that the serious depletion of the her- 
ring schools would correspondingly impair the abundance of king- 
salmon. 
MISCELLANEOUS FISHES, CRUSTACEA, SHELLFISH, ETC. 
Eulachon ( Thaleichthys pacificus ). — An enormous run of this fish 
was reported by prospectors to have appeared in the Sushitna River, 
one of the tributaries of Cook Inlet, the first week in June. It is also 
abundant in a few other streams in southeast and central Alaska for 
some two weeks in the spring. Few are used as food by the whites, 
but the natives consume large quantities. 
Sturgeon . — A sturgeon 3 feet 10 inches in length is reported to 
have been caught in a gill net operated near the mouth of the Stikine 
River. 
A natural history collector of Wrangell reports having seen a 
sturgeon in the shallow waters of Union Bay in June, 1901. It was 
about 5 feet in length. 
Crabs . — Crabs are exceedingly abundant, particularly in southeast 
Alaska and in Prince William Sound, in central Alaska, and have 
